My son has been telling me all year long that when his birthday comes around in September, he wants a lion themed birthday party. When I say all year long, I mean it.

What month is it now Mommy?January, bud.Then after YOUR birthday it's MY birthday? Well, yes, but it's months from now.How many more months until September?Quite a few.How about now Mommy? What month are we in now?July.And then it's September? No sweetie, remember the months of the year song? (Singing) ...May, June, July and August...(He sings)...Septemberrrr!

Finally, September first arrives. And most days I'm asked, "What number is it today? Is it my birthday? Am I four now?" With his birthday at the end of the month, it's like we're waiting for Christmas Day.

But let's rewind a little. On and off all year my son was telling me he really wanted a lion party. Lion balloons and lion cupcakes, he'd request. But this all changed after his first movie theatre experience; a Disney experience, naturally. Disney Pixar Planes to be exact.

He came home a bit overwhelmed, overstimulated and probably more emotionally manipulated in 1-1/2 hours than ever before. But as the days went by, our dialogue (and eventually his monologues/role plays) started to fill with airplanes zipping, zooming and soaring through the sky. Dusty nose diving, Ishani fixing his propeller (?), "Don't look down!" "Back to the hangar" "I'm scared of heights!" "It's not El CHUP Mom, it's El CHUUUUUU!" Oh, I'm sorry.

When I started planning his birthday party I asked him if he still wanted a lion party."Mmm..yes. And planes. (pauses) Lions and planes. Mmmmmm....planes. No, lions and planes."

I left it alone for a few days and asked him again.

"Mmmm...just planes Mommy. Just planes.""Are you sure?""Yes."

Every afternoon I spend a solid hour and half of one on one time with my little guy. I love this time with him and am so thankful for the off-hours I work because it gives me these precious times. While we usually do something educational followed by something fun, I decided the week before his birthday party, he could help with the prep work. Every afternoon, we worked on something. We made clothes pin airplanes, painted them, hung them up with push pins. We made clouds out of cotton balls and hung those up with the planes, and we made a Dusty Crophopper Piñata. With the last project listed, I knew, my daughter was going to want in on the messy fun. She loves getting her hands messy and papier mache is a whole lot of messy. Not wanting to repeat the Play-Doh episode we had a month ago where she reacted to wheat-filled Play-Doh, I decided to use a gluten-free recipe for the papier mache. This 'recipe' is a collaboration of various recipes I found online. If you have Celiac Disease or are allergic to wheat on contact, I hope you will find this cornstarch based 'glue' useful!